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December 26, 2006

The spirit of the Z-List

Mack Collier from The Viral Garden – and I think his blog has never been so well named – launched December 12th the idea of the “Z-List”. Now for those of you not familiar (yet) with it, here is a little recap.

Mack originally proposed to bring more “link-love” to great blogs that, for whatever reason, aren't getting their due, link-wise. His idea was to create an open list, built like an internet meme, that bloggers could copy and paste on their blogs. Now, the goal of this was also to influence Technorati’s system of using a blog's number of links to determine its “authority”. And this gave birth to the Z-List growing on the blogosphere right now.

Well, mindblob was lucky to be chosen for the Z-List by Gavin Heaton, just 2 days after Mack Collier’s original post (December 14th). Although I wasn’t really into rankings at all before this happened, I must confess, I’m quite impressed by the evolution of this thing. I checked my Technorati ranking to document it later and here are my observations.

At the time, my ranking was somewhere close to: 128.871 with 14 blogs linking to mindblob (yep, I know... a real z-lister!). Today (only 12 days later), mindblob is ranked : 50.946 with 94 links to here and it is growing everyday.

Thumbs up to Mack Collier (yes, I had to say it!), because his idea is brillant, plus he really launched a viral interference to the Technorati ranking system. It is indeed viral in a way... because once launched, nobody can stop it.Can anyone tell me where I can find the latest and most updated Z-List? ; )

Ok now, a few thoughts I'd like to share with you...

First thought :Technorati ranking is based on links from blogs to blogs. The more links to a blog, the higher position this blog gets to. Although a great reference site, we all know this ranking system is just one way to rank blogs, the Z-List wave could make it a bit more relative than it was before. I wonder if Technorati is going to consider this as relevant and maybe comment.

Second thought :Thumbs up to Mack Collier (yes yes... again!), because all the blogs linking to the Z-List, link to his blog as well. But honestly, I like this idea, because he definitely deserves it. Can’t wait to see the next Top 25 marketing blogs list on the Viral Garden.

Third thought :Guess what... Seth Godin’s in the run. He just launched a Squidoo page to add his touch to the Z-List phenomenon. On his “lens” you can vote for “blogs you might want to check out, but haven’t heard of”. Quite a good idea also and probably an ingenious marketing move. And by the way... yes, there’s a link to mindblob from Seth Godin’s site. ; )

Nevertheless, Mack Collier noticed Seth’s list and quoted on his last post :

“...it's obvious that he started with the 'Z-List' of blogs that's getting passed around so much, as the basis for the list. It also appears that Seth, or someone else, have added several of the so-called 'A-List' blogs, such as his, Creating Passionate Users, and Gaping Void. I'm not a big fan of that, since I think it dilutes the purpose of the 'Z-List', and as you can see, the so-called 'A-Listers' have mostly moved to the top already.”

To be honest with you, I just don’t know how to read and understand these votes. At the time being, there are 277 blogs in his list. Only 9 blogs out of 277 get positive points, 4 have 0 points, and more surprising : 264 get negative points ! ! ! OK, votes seem to be moving fast, up and down, really. So, I guess we’ll have to wait for a while. Still, there are more negative votes than positive votes. Does that mean that the original list is not relevant? My question is : who is voting on Seth’s Squidoo and on what criteria?

Mack to end his post in a very elegant and clever way :

“But hey, that's the beauty of the community, they can take an idea and run with it wherever they want. The end result is that most of you should see even more traffic and links to your blogs, and find some more good reads, so that's a good thing, and I thank Seth for doing this.”

Last thought :(oh... I mean, of this post, don’t worry there will be more!) This wave is on the move and indeed, not much can stop it now. But wherever it goes, maybe we should keep in mind the original idea of the Z-List, allow me to say :

“The spirit of the Z-List” : a focus on blogs of interest.

So, there are two alternatives, really. Either speculate on rankings (oh... did I just do that on previous paragraphs?) or spend time discovering the Z-List blogs. And I encourage you to do so... it is rich, full of stunning blogs, reads and posts, and definitely worth spending time on. As a conclusion and loop, I’ll quote Gavin Heaton (thank you mate! I vote for you too) and his blog Servant of Chaos, who captured, imho, the spirit of the Z-List :

“...have been so excited at what I have found.It just goes to show that more is MORE.”

Comments

Thanks for the kind words, Luc. I am hoping that the Z-List continues to mutate and doesn't just end with Seth's Squidoo. One of the best finds I had was when it broke out of the marketing/advertising channel and went into education. If it can continue to do that, then it will have really changed the game ... and Mack can retire, having changed the world ;)

My pleasure Gavin. I am with you on this one.
LOL about Mack retired after changing the world. After his (personal) meme... maybe we could propose to call him Bat-Mack. He'll wear a super-suit with a huge green "Z" on his chest. ; )

Joyeux Noel and Bonne Anne (my spelling is likely off my alien friend). I do hope the meme helps you and I linked to you well before this because your blog and YOU rock and are so generous to this community.

My gratitude and respect to Mack for this wonderful and giving idea. And yeah, Gavin rocks, too. He knows good blogs and, like Mack, is overly generous everyday in his posts.

My take on the blogs with an already high Q rating on Technorati is that someone didn't get what the Z-list was all about, and just added the blogs they felt were worthy, and this got spread. Like many viruses, and many of the best plants, mutation happens. I'm just enjoying the moment and getting to know some new friends who have picked this meme up. While many of the places I've never visited before, I am enjoying my trip around Planet Blogosphere, and this stop is another wonderful delight.

CK,
Once again... thank you for your kind words.
And I agree with you : I'm proud as well to be involved with this community.
Meilleurs Voeux to you for 2007 ! ; )

Phil,
Welcome to mindblob and thank you for your clever comment. I share the same vision and this is the reason-why of this post!

Roger,
Thanks for your comment and your vote (and by the way, I voted for you on the list as well). Still all the sense this list takes at this stage, is probably getting traffic and subscriptions to Squidoo (I read this on DA's L&E comments). Did I understand it well? Is it one of Seth's Godin's "product"? Is he taking credit (traffic) and money out of Mack Collier's Z-List? Grrrr... I'd rather not think about that! Let's just keep the good "spirit" in mind, right! ; )

KG,
I think the Squidoo thing is out of the original Z-List, really. Nothing out there is close to what the list was intended to bring.
Hey, I've got to mention it again : I'm happy I discovered your (great) blog! Thank you "Z-List"!

Hi Luc - I have said this many times, but I have to say it again. The best thing about what Mack did with this Z-List was to bring together really top-rate blogs to the forefront. We have so many truly awesome blogs now on our radar (and in our reader, I should say). We agree, we weren't really watching where we stood within the ranks of Technorati, but by being a part of the Z-List phenomenon, it has certainly brought a new perspective to what it means to be active within a community. We look forward to following your thoughts, ideas and connecting brains in the future! :)